Monday, September 12, 2005

BOOB WAR CLIMAX! Everybody Loves Power Girl!

Ahh, Power Girl.

I love Power Girl, and I don't know why. Well, actually, I do know why, but it's for completely juvenille reasons.

Power Girl is at once the most generic and most sexualized super heroine in mainstream comics. I believe that they key to whatever popularity Power Girl has is her generic, blank-slate quality – she is a tabula rasa that comic book fans and creators alike can project their conscious and unconscious desires on to.

That, and she is built like a brick outhouse.

Power Girl’s bosom is her most prominent feature, and prominent is the word. If she were real, and she showed up to rescue you, you would be going, “Daaamn!” Eye contact with her would be impossible –such is the er, power of Power Girl’s Magical Cleavage.

Observe:

Power Girl rivals Lady Death, Lara Croft, and Battlechasers’ Red Monika in terms of cup-size, but there’s a key difference: The other characters I mentioned were designed with large breasts at their inception, whereas Power Girl has evolved over the years into her current statuesque mode through a sort of tribal tradition among creators. It's been said that when artist Wally Wood was inking over Ric Estrada's pencils on All-Star Comics, he kept making Power Girl's breasts bigger and bigger - just to see if his editors would cry "foul." Now it is an accepted and consistent convention in DC Comics – Power Girl must be drawn with giant breasts.

That is about the only thing that’s consistent about Power Girl.

There have been like, seventy different origin stories for Power Girl, and fifty different costumes. The character is so generic that numerous different artists and writers have tried to spice her up by screwing around with her back story or giving her new clothes or new powers. Who can blame them? Power Girl is not an inherently interesting character.

Sorry, it has to be said. Power Girl is kind of boring.

I mean, she’s okay on super-teams and stuff, but I don’t know how inherently gripping she is as a character. I don’t think I’m alone on this, which is why editors and writers have tinkered with her backstory, to the point where Power Girl has now had three entirely different origin stories.

Sadly, the results of all this tinkering have just made the character less interesting and her story more complex than you would think her bland nature would warrant.

Okay, I’ll lay off Power Girl. It’s not as if I dislike her or anything, it’s just that I’ve never read a Power Girl story that gripped my shit, so to speak. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like boobs. See?

Let's talk about Power Girl's origin(s). Originally she was Superman’s cousin, a Kryptonian with all the attendant powers. They scrapped that, and decided she was actually an Atlantean, sent forward in time by her grandfather Arion. Why? Something about giving birth to the savior of humanity or something. The current origin story, as I understand it, is that Power Girl is a refugee from the future, an amnesiac former member of the Legion of Super-Heroes. Sure, why not? That’s no worse than the other two origins they had for her.

Her powers? The original Kryptonian-version Power Girl had powers and abilities on par with Superman, but DC rightly concluded that having two Kryptonians flying around didn’t make Superman seem very super. During a Justice League Europe crossover called “The Teasdale Imperative,” Power Girl sustains a magical injury which greatly reduces her power from Superman-levels to, I don’t know, Starman levels.

Here's Justice League Europe #9, where Power Girl gets her powers reduced after getting seriously injured. Only Superman can save her, with his healing heat vision! Or something. And should she be wearing her outfit in surgery? I know it's flattering, but is it sanitary?

Anyway, the cover:

After that, DC started coming up with crazy powers and vulnerabilities for Power Girl out of left field. In Birds of Prey she had telekinesis. In a guest-spot in the pages of Supergirl, she was vulnerable to – let me see if I got this right – natural, unprocessed material. In other words, if you smack her with a rake, it wouldn’t hurt, but if you smack her with a hickory stick, it would. That would be a bad idea: smacking Power Girl with a hickory stick.

Anyway, I don’t know where these powers came from – presumably they were riffs on her Atlantean heritage (Origin #2), though I blame REM – Random Editorial Mandate. I'm really big on gratuitous acronyms these days.

Her costumes? In my mind, the ultimate, classic Power Girl costume is the white peek-a-boo number with what I like to call the Magical Cleavage Window:

Another classic costume featured a positively canyonous décolletage, made popular by artist Bart Sears:

There was also a version of the classic costume that had no Magical Cleavage Window at all. This costume is stupid and misses the entire point of Power Girl in the first place. No cleavage = no Power Girl. I'm not even going to post a picture of that costume, because really, that's not why we're here.

After her powers were reduced, Power Girl wore a gold and white costume in the pages of Justice League Europe. Here's a scene where The Flash leers at Power Girl's new costume in front of a couple of kids. 100% class. Click to enlarge:

I actually didn’t mind this costume, except Power Girl needs a cape. She’s a cape kind of heroine. No cape = no Power Girl. But what is up with the collar on that outfit? It’s like she has a weird disco muffler built into her outfit. Does she get chilly or something?

During the Gerard Jones era of Justice League Europe she wore a blue and white costume that supposedly "reflected her Atlantean heritage." There’s a cape of sorts and the Magic Cleavage Window is back, so that’s good, but otherwise I think this costume sucks. It looks like what people in the eighties thought that disco workout wear would look like in the year 2000.

Look, not only does Power Girl have bosom cleavage, but she also has cute butt cleavage.

Anyway, these days Power Girl is back with the classic white Magic Cleavage Window in JSA every month, and recently in JSA: Classified. And don't think people don't comment on the Magic Cleavage Window.

You see, in the fictional universe that she inhabits, all the other superheroes think Power Girl is totally hot. All of them (except Aquaman).

Power Girl is the premier superhero sex object in the DC Universe – among her peers, she alone occupies the unique role of the Super Bombshell.

Traditionally DC writers, through the voices of other characters and mechanics of plot, have emphasized Power Girl’s sexuality – not just the art, but the stories themselves emphasized Power Girl’s super hotness. Male heroes like Firestorm and The Flash try to hit on her. Even Superman and Batman think she’s hot. Her various costumes always illicit comments from her fellow heroes. In several comics, characters develop obsessive sexual fixations on Power Girl. People always comment on or check out or try to grab her breasts.

Seriously, she has got to be the most sexualized – dare I say, objectified? – heroine in mainstream spandex comics.

What? You don’t believe me? You're stupid. Take a look. Everybody wants Power Girl. Well, except for Aquaman. But Aquaman is gay. I'm not judging or anything; I think it's cool. I say, go Aquaman.

Firestorm had the "hots" for Power Girl, as we see here in Justice League of America Vol 1 #208:

Firestorm, you're never getting a woman as long as you keep wearing that outfit.

Of course, The Flash wants Power Girl, too, but he is more crude and open about it. In the pages of Justice League Europe he continually makes unprofessional sexual comments to Power Girl:

Okay, that's just sexual harassment right there. Power Girl and Flash are in a work environment, and he needs to recognize that. But no, The Flash continues to harass his co-worker, establishing an unprofessional climate and enabling harassment by other heroes.

Don't believe me? Here's a scene from Justice Leauge America #113. Our heroes have been captured by an evil alien hunter Flicker and are chained up. Blue Devil decides to sexually harass Power Girl into a berserk rage that will let her bust loose. Take a look:

Power Girl is the Anita Hill of super heroes.

Seriously, none of the other Justice League women have to put up with harassment like that, not even Fire. You ever see somebody pulling that with Wonder Woman? "Hey, Wonder Woman. Nice ass. You work out?" No. She would flatten them. But Power Girl has to deal with this shit all the time.

And don't think that bad guys aren't trying to cop a quick feel in combat:

Everywhere she goes, people ogle and leer at Power Girl. I suppose in one way it's a realistic reaction, because again, if she showed up on a city street she would cause traffic accidents from all the drivers going, "Daaamn!" But on the other hand, people don't drool all over Wonder Woman when she goes out in public. Or if they do, they keep it on the down-low.

Here, look, check out the sailors in the background scoping PG out in this panel from Birds of Prey #42. They look both frightened and aroused, perhaps because of artist Glenn Fabry's extra-muscular interpretation of her:

Nobody is exempt from the hypnotic power of the Magic Cleavage Window. Everybody checks Power Girl out (except Aquaman), even Jimmy Olsen. Here he is sneaking a peek in the pages of a recent JSA Classified:

Power Girl's hotness is such a universal fact that Superman and Batman exploit it to tactical advantage in Superman/Batman #4. They don't come out and say it, but basically they say, "Power Girl, can you distract our foe with your breasts for us?"

Not to beat a dead horse, but nobody asks Wonder Woman to shake her ass in front of a bad guy, even if it is for a good cause.

Even out of costume, Power Girl is the subject of unwanted attention. Here's a panel from Hawkman, where the Village People encourage Power Girl to flash them:

Holy shit! Those are big, even by Power Girl standards.

Everyone comments on Power Girl's breasts, even women. Take the Body Doubles mini-series, for example:

Why is it that they remark on the size of Power Girl's chest, but not on the fact that her nipples are missing? Ahh, because the Body Doubles girls don't have nipples either!

In Gerard Jones' Justice League Europe, entire pages are spent discussing Power Girl's costume and the Magical Cleavage Window. Here's PG, Dr. Light, and Crimson Fox, who seriously must have the goofiest costume ever. Does she even look like a fox? And is she crimson? They should have called her Brown Cobra instead.

Anyway, Brown Cobra even comments on PG's cleavage:

You go, Power Girl!

In all the long years I've been collecting comics, I've learned that comic covers are nearly always improved by the presence of breasts. It stands to reason that comic covers with Power Girl on it would be excellent - and focused on one thing.

Well, two things:

What's the first thing you notice on that cover, above? The turkey? The Atom on the table welcoming everyone to his fa-bulous show? Or maybe Power Girl's breasts? Don't worry, you're not alone; it looks like Superman is taking a look as well. Such is the power of the Magical Cleavage Window.

For my money, a Power Girl cover isn't effective unless it emphasizes That Which Makes Power Girl Special...

...as long as Power Girl's chest is the focus of the piece, I'm happy:

However, I'll settle for crude symbolism in lieu of breastage:

Perhaps with this new origin we are entering a new era of Power Girlhood, in which she becomes a little more, um, fleshed-out as a character. Maybe writer Geoff Johns is the one who will finally rise and give Power Girl the props she deserves, and she can transcend her bra-size and become a more fully realized character. It would be a shame if Power Girl were just about the boobs.

Can't we as comics readers have both? Can't we have an incredibly stacked superheroine and and interesting character at the same time? I want it all. I want Power Girl to kick ass, to be written well, and have big boobs at the same time - something for everyone!

"Built like a brick outhouse." WTF? I know it's not no-cursing week, because you say shit later, so what's up? Why the decorum? I rely on you to show comics of women with large breasts and to curse like a longshoreman. Don't let me down!

Is it me or is Blue Devil's horns actually locked together in that scene? If his Horns were so dangerous that they had to be restrained, why couldn't they restrain Power Girl's umm Power Girls?

I really wish DC would take the plunge and give Power Girl a sex life. We know Wonder Woman will never date, and apparently Nightwing is the designated hitter for all the Gotham girls. Just once I would like to see a superheroine date someone in the DC universe.

One thing I like, and that I think indicates progress of sorts, is that the recent trend has been to draw Power Girl with, yes, big breasts, but also on a big, muscular frame that could plausibly support them. I mean, there *are* women with non-surgically-enhanced breasts as large as Kara's (well, at least when you leave out the "breasts bigger than the head" school of artist....) The thing is, they don't have skinny supermodel physiques....

And in the second issue of that JSA mini-series, we find out why that window is there. Though potentially lame and retrofitted on its own, it's also about as good a reason as you could come up with at this point.

As I believe I commented in another post, Shon's usage of "Power Girls" as nomenclature for "boobs" is simply a brilliant idea that everyone should start using immediately. Exhibit A: Dave's Greatest Post Ever.

Is it true that Johns "explained" the Magical Window by saying that Kara couldn't decide on a chest emblem? Doesn't that imply that Kara's emblem--the symbol of her identity--is her breasts?

Am I the only one who finds that a tad disturbing? (Especially against the background that Dave has elaborated on.)

Makes me wish Morrison had revamped Power Girl as one of the new Seven Soldiers. I imagine he could do interesting things with a third-rate Supergirl knockoff whom the entire superhero community sees as a sex object.

Wertham would have loved Power Girl and the display of her accouterments, had they been around when he wrote the Sedution of the Innocent. He could have put a picture of her on page one and said "SEE!?!? SEE?!?! A heroine that serves no other purpose than to make you believe a MAM can fly! This is exactly what I'm talking about!!!", thus making his point and sparing us the remainder of the tome.

Speaking of the golden age, what about Phantom Lady? IMHO, I think she's the pioneer for all Boob Warfare.

I notice no one here is claiming to read Power Girl for the articles...

On a more serious subject, I actually remember that Justice League Europe story. Superman was brought in because they didn't have any scalpels that could cut her skin. They put his head in that helmet so that a surgeon could aim his heat vision by remote control.

Freaky, but a creative way to operate on someone who's practically invulnerable.

Aquaman wasn't checking her out in that scene, no, because he was playing it cool. If you remember, they were making out, like, a couple issues later. Until she slept with Hal Jordan, a scant ten issues later or whatever.

I liked that Gerard Jones JLE costume. But I was a huge fan of JLE. Heh.

Shon said "Just once I would like to see a superheroine date someone in the DC universe."

Are you forgetting Black Canary (Dinah) and Green Arrow (Ollie), or Wonder Girl (Donna) and Green Lantern (Kyle), or Wonder Girl (Donna) and Arsenal/Speedy (Roy), or Black Canary (Dinah) and Dr. Midnite (Pieter), or even Oracle and Beetle (Ted), Wonder Girl (Cassie) and Superboy (Kon). And that's not even mentioning all the heroes with non-meta, non-hero love interests.

GREAT post, Dave. Personally I can't wait for the resolution of her origins in JSA Classified.

When exactly did Blue Devil change from the beloved Blue Devil of my teenage years -- the last bastion of rrrrrrreally fun comics for a few dour years -- into a giant kewl bestial lech? That irritates the crap out of me.

OK, lemme try this again: Dave, How could you not post a scan of the scene in that JSA Thanksgiving issue where Power Girl throws Wildcat out the window? He's drunk, he's old, he has no superpowers, they're on the penthouse floor, he insults Wonder Woman, so Power Girl sidearms him out a skylight.

How hot is Power Girl? So hot that no one in the JSA or JLA minds when she nearly kills a teammate in second-hand anger before everyone sits down for Turkey.

Hey... I will honestly say that I love Power Girl, and I don't love her for her breasts - of course I'm gay, and I think being turned on by pen and ink drawings is a little disturbing... but I digress. I've been a huge fan of her character since the days of All Star Comics... a personality that Geoff Johns has been recapturing really well in the new Classified story... anyhow, Paul Levitz really gave Power Girl a strong voice, she was gruff, but sarcastic and funny, a little pushy but always ready to-go... she's a great personality - too bad she will always be remembered by the mammeries

Just droping you a line to let you know you got a new fan. I mostly stay away from comic blogs {who relley wants to know what some dink thinks about House Of M or hear them bich about DC "rapeing ther childhood"} but yous ticks all my boxs and i will defnitly be back

Doesn't Power Girl have a FOURTH origin story, as displayed in the Justice League Unlimited cartoon?

Something about being an artificial clone of Supergirl. Whole lotta boob war goin' on in one of the recent episodes, too.

(Back in the day, I had a poster of the three Alex Ross Kingdom Come covers in my cube, and everybody stopped by to stare at Power Girl. It was an early clue to the power of Boob War, come to think of it.)

Wow -- when you put all that together, it's fairly obvious that she is, in fact, drawn to be overly busty and for males to ogle. (As I have now done.) She was almost ruined by that Glenn Fabry guy, but the peekabo window saved her.

Very funny! I love the Norman Rockwell comparison later on. I read somewhere that Wally Wood is to blame for Power Girl's bust. He was drawing All-Star Comics in the 70s and just kept making them bigger every issue. He kept thinking the editors would eventually complain but they never did.

Just saw this web address on the BEA and had to comment on several things:First off, Aquaman is NOT GAY! Remember Mera? He is rather aloof, however, and reserved around other people (he is a king, you know), which would explain him not frothing at the mouth over Power Girl.Second, the bloger neglected to mention that Power Girl was originally the EARTH II version of Supergirl! You know, the earth where all the old WWII heros lived and which was created by the great Gardner Fox for "Flash of Two Worlds" way back in the 1950s? Power Girl was one of the characters screwed up by the "Crisis On Infinent Earths" story, when DC tried to tidy up and get rid of all the alternate universes they'd created over the years. Kara, the somewhat dull original Super Girl, was killed in the story and the idea was that the much more interesting Power Girl would take her place, but that never happened. Instead, they kept creating new, bogus versions of Super Girl while Power Girl was reduced to a marginal character with confusing origins (only one or two people living in the DC universe now even remember that the Crisis happened).Third, the current JSA:Classified storyline is great, but I hope they aren't suggesting that Power Girl is going to fill in the circle when it's over. That would be a shame.PS - I attended a Comic Convention in August during which Adam Hughes confirmed Wally Wood did, indeed, keep increasing the size of Power Girl's breasts until an editor noticed. What a man!

I am a liflong fan of the JSA, and all the various earth 2 heroes, most notibly the E2 Superman and his huge chested cousin, Kara, aka Power Girl.

Curious that Power Girl was simply the Earth 2 conterpart to the earth 1 Supergirl, who sported a B cup at best.Power Girl was pure triple D, and she looked like she stepped right out of a Russ Meyer T&A film.....

In an age when fasion worships penicil thin flat chested anorexicic women, Power girl gives me hope- the notion of a women having curves as being sexy. Her magnificnt chest pillows are hands down the finest pair in all of comicdom..Giant boobies are where its at.I don't think Im the only one who reads JSA with one hand...

WOW: As a disgusted yet intrigued FEMALE, I actually found this article moderately interesting. It really got me thinking about how comic books are NOT merely inane pices of junk, but (occasionally) thought-provoking works of modern art. The readers' "comments", however, made me re-realize why some men should have their testicles ripped off and stuffed down their throats. NOT ALL, but some. Thank you very much for your time.~dmgj

I cannot believe I didn't stumble upon your blog sooner! I was actually looking for Power Girl, found this article, and began voraciously reading your sexcellent posts. I LOVED these heroines as a girl--I don't care if they were sexualized or amped up--I found it hot and inspiring that hey, even skimpy outfits didn't stop these bitches. They were awesome and could roll with any punch (did I mention those skimpy outfits?).

Whenever you hear a woman in the fandom bitch and moan about The Sexual Sell in comics, manga, RPGs, or whatever, you tell them that just as many women were inspired by tough women who could be pretty at the same time, on their own terms. They're just jealous, and that's kind of sad.

I never heard about Power Girl, but once I started to read on, I really could identify. Someone earlier posted that there are giant breasts that are non-surgically enhanced, but there not on slender people. Well I tell to disagree since I'm one of those rare people, and yes, in my own humble non-superhero life, the cleavage and boobs get noticed everywhere I go...and sometimes I get shit too, but it goes with the territory. Even when I dressed up as Wonder Woman for Halloween, more people wanted to see me topless or remarked on the size of my chest than saying I looked as sexy as WW! Even my gay friends remark on the "power of the boobs" on both men and women, sometimes resulting in unpleasatries. And people on the street have said "Damn" and "Those can't be real!" and I would love to smother them to death with my pillows to prove they're real, but then again I'm a lady. Well, I'm going to Convergence in Minneapolis in a week dressed as a sexy Trekkie and WW, and I wonder who will say I should have gone as Power Girl.

Here's another thing I always wondered about. This quote is from an issue of JLE (JLA? JLI?) where Dr Light tells PG that diet soda's are causing her to have mood swings and PG launches into a tirade about men.

'Male magicians kept me in suspended animation for centuries - implanted false memories in me - making me think I was just a pale imitation of a male hero - Superman!'

I always wondered if 'implanted false memories in me' was a sneaky writer's joke about her breast size. I hope it doesn't lead to a new origin scenario in which PG is Sarenna Lee.

Great article..BUT..Power Girl's origin has never changed. She was, is and always will be the cousin of the Superman of Earth-2. I said it from the moment COIE ended up until the reveal I was right in IC. Everything else was just a lame attempt by lame writers to fit her in to the new DCU.

I always found women in Marvel to act much more realistic in terms of behavior than the DC ones. Seriously it seems that none of the women in the DC universe either date go out or have sex of any kind.

Power Girl is drawn as the world most desirable woman and of course as soon as men stare at her it because their "pigs" or something along those lines.

Notwithstanding that her large breast size and costume would almost make it that you can't help but stare at her chest. At least in Marvel you have women who actually like it when men stare at them.

I respect and understand why DC gives her the dialogue that they do and I understand and respect DC for doing it.

At the same time were talking about the same company that had Nightwing and Starfire date for about 15 years and ended up having Nightwing marry Oracle because he always had a thing for the original Batgirl.

Or like how Wonder Woman either never dates. Just once I would like DC to have their femal characters act a little more realistically. There is a reason why Marvel is more popular than DC and it's because their characters both male and female act and behave pretty much like men and women of today do.

Ha, I realize I'm coming in on this two years late, but what the hell. I know next to nothing about Power Girl outside of her famed cleavage and the jokes which follow (originally I thought she was a member of the Legion of Super Heroes, but that's because of her generic name. And you have to admit, the costume would fit in there :) ).

Anyway, I notice that this long running cleavage gag is so pervasive to the character that I doubt there's any way to really salvage her. Heck even the Brothers Grinn created a sort of homage to the her with their character Buxom Gal. http://www.supermegatopia.com/profiles/profiles.php?thisLink=buxomgal.txt

Perhaps they should just go with it and put her in a more "mature" series. Relatively speaking. ;)

I think Power Girl was intersesting as a character under Giffen, not just a sexualized blank slate. She was a hard-core bitch back then.

True, in one sense she was just the JLE answer to Guy Gardner, but at the time he was the most entertaining character to ever appear in a super-hero book. She wasn't quite the same caliber, but that might just be because she didn’t have DeMattis scripting her.

I've neglected comics in the last few years. Posts like yours made me reconsider. But there is a problem. I'm not singling you out. I've seen other people do this too. When you show a cover, great, but when you show a frame, for example, "They ain't looking at my face", I don't know what book to get. Several people show that frame, and nobody tells me where they got it. I can't judge a comic book by one frame, can I? Thank you and good day.

Man, I want to like Power Girl so much. Especially when she gets drawn with a nice solid, muscular body that could actually support those luverly boobs. But she's such a god-damned hypocrite - I want to punch her every time she gets violent with a guy for checking her out. I mean, jesus, you're basically wearing a swimsuit with a window display, lady! You can't tell me you're not trying to be noticed.

I have no problem with the idea of sexualised characters. I have no problem with a character who likes to show off her "assets". But just like /any/ woman who chooses to wear a push-up bra with a low-cut top, she doesn't get to complain when people stare 9_9;

What a great article with great information. I am not surprised at Wally Wood, but I never new it. I love Power Girl. I was a teenage boy when All Star Comics returned and introduced her. I have been in lust ever since and she just gets bigger. I mean better.

Oh my, i definitely look forward to getting these comics! Me personally, I just love sexy heroines like Red Sonya, Witchblade and Tarot of the Black Rose. Thanks for the blog, this will definitely help my collection! <3 Power Girl FTW!

Personally I'd consider the rebooted Starfire to be the most generic and sexualized super heroine in mainstream comics today, considering her origin as (IIRC) a sex slave and the fact that DC has her hopping into the sack with any guy that bats an eye at her. PG may not be the most complex character ever written, but at least she has the dignity of not being everyone's go-to f**k toy.